Czech President Petr Pavel says the West should continue its support for Kiev to convince Russia it cannot succeed militarily
Czech President Petr Pavel has argued that the West can end the conflict in Ukraine by providing Kiev with all the weapons it needs. He believes this will convince Russia that it cannot advance further on the battlefield.
In May, Pavel, the former chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, told Sky News that it would be naive to think Ukraine could fully regain control of its territories in the near future. He predicted that Russia would not relinquish the territory it currently occupies. Pavel also anticipated that some sort of compromise might be reached during future peace negotiations, and that ending the conflict could pave the way for discussions about Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO.
On Friday, the Seznam Zpravy news outlet quoted Pavel as saying that Russia has more resources than Ukraine, making a quick breakthrough on the front lines unlikely, even with Western support. However, the Czech president insisted that Western support should continue, providing Ukraine with all the weaponry it needs to force Russia to realize its inability to make further gains and start negotiating.
Pavel also emphasized that in any peace talks, the West should not recognize the territories held by Moscow’s forces as Russian, but instead label them as temporarily occupied. He reiterated his skepticism about Ukraine’s ability to reclaim parts of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, as well as Crimea, in the foreseeable future.
Following his meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his desire for a “complete and final end of the conflict,” as opposed to a “ceasefire or some kind of pause that the Kiev regime could use to recover losses, regroup, and rearm.” He insisted that the hostilities can only end if Ukraine fulfills several of Russia’s demands, including the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the entire Donbass region, as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.
Previously, Putin had also stated that legally binding guarantees that Kiev would not seek NATO membership were among Moscow’s conditions. Kiev, along with its Western supporters, has rejected this proposal, calling it an unacceptable ultimatum.
Similarly, Moscow previously described Vladimir Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’ as an ultimatum divorced from reality.